Our church had its Episcopal Visitation today. The charming new Bishop of New York Matthew Heyd, an extroverted North Carolinian "church geek" who bounces as he speaks, preached from the floor, making eye contact with everyone. (His motto is "the Holy Spirit moves at ground level.") Today's message was just what I needed, too.
Today's gospel was the one from Mark where Jesus foretells the destruction of the Temple, and warns
“Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray." (Mark 13:5)
The bishop reminded us that all the gospels were written from a place of trauma, after the destruction of the Temple and at a time when the religious authorities colluded with the Imperial Roman government. But he described it in terms that spoke also to the trauma of us reeling at the subversion of American democracy undertaken by so-called Christians in the recent election. When he said of Titus, the general who oversaw the destruction of the Temple, "part of his celebration in Rome was what he destroyed in Jerusalem," I nearly wept.
The kind of Christianity Bishop Heyd preached, one of inclusion and community and the recognition of Jesus in everyone we meet, is more desperately needed now than ever. It's not always the Episcopal way to call out those who lead astray. Shamefully, our church did not split over human enslavement! We're doing better these days. One of our other diocesan bishops, Allen Shin, is lead author of the recent report from the House of Bishops Theology Committee, The Crisis of Christian Nationalism, which argues that Christian nationalism
is “a white supremacist national ideology that uses the Christian religion as its justification. Thus, it is fundamentally an apostasy that violates the first and the second of the Ten Commandments.” They explain that the ideology “consists of assumptions about white supremacy, Anglo-Saxon nativism, patriarchy, and militarism.”
Today's sermon was consonant with that witness.
May these and other bishops make clear that there are many kinds of Christianity in this land... No, that's me being a scholar of religion, deferring to people's self-identification. These times call for theology: may these and other bishops make clear that there are many kinds of false Christianity in this land. And not just bishops.